6 BUILDERS CHOSEN FOR HOUSING AT BATTERY PARK CITY

By PAUL GOLDBERGER

Published: August 19, 1981

Six real-estate companies were named yesterday to develop housing in Battery Park City that would reject the uniformity of other large projects and reflect the diversity of Manhattan neighborhoods.

The companies were named by the Battery Park City Authority, which is under the auspices of the New York State Urban Development Corporation. The authority plans to have the concerns begin construction early next year on 1,809 units of housing. The project is expected to have a major impact on the lower Manhattan skyline.

The housing will be built according to urban-design guidelines that require it to contain a mix of town houses, low-rise apartment buildings and high-rise towers, organized around a central park and a series of streets resembling those of the rest of Manhattan.

The developers, who will be formally designated by the authority's board tomorrow, are Housing Innovations Inc. of Manhattan, the Center for Housing Partnerships of Manhattan, LRF Developers Inc. of the Bronx, Jason D. Carter & Associates of Manhattan, Rockrose Development Corporation of Manhattan, and a joint venture among the Goodstein Construction Corporation, Milstein Properties Inc. and Dic-Underhill Construction Company, all of Manhattan.

Of the six companies, only two -Rockrose, which specializes in conversions of old industrial buildings into housing, and the Goodstein and Milstein group, builders of new apartment towers - are well-known Manhattan builders.

The six developers were chosen from 27 real-estate companies that responded to a call for proposals issued in April by the New York State Urban Development Corporation.

Although the Battery Park City Authority and the Urban Development Corporation control the general design of Battery Park City, many details of the project's final appearance will be up to the individual developers.

They were selected on the basis of the guaranteed rent and payment in lieu of taxes each developer was willing to make to the Battery Park City Authority, as well as on their experience and the authority's estimate of their ability to finance and build a project of this size, according to Richard A. Kahan, chief executive officer of both the Battery Park City Authority and the State Urban Development Corporation.

The new housing will be built on nine acres roughly in the center of Battery Park City, on a site bounded by an extension of Albany Street on the north and West Thames Street on the south. It will be to the south of the planned commercial core of office towers to be built by Olympia & York and designed by Cesar Pelli, and just south of a 1,700-unit housing complex of more conventional tower design that is under construction.

This new project will be the first residential construction at Battery Park City since the New York State Urban Development Corporation took over the project and adopted a new master plan for its design in 1979. The master plan, by the urban design firm of Cooper Eckstut Associates, divides this residential site into 12 parcels. Each of the developers has been assigned a parcel on which a specific kind of housing, such as 528 units in a high-rise tower, will be required.

Although the initial proposal of many developers had included names of architects with whom they wished to work, the authority designated only the developers. The developers will choose architects shortly, subject to the authority's approval, Bob Rafsky, a spokesman for the authority, said. Rejecting the 'Project' Look

While final plans for this project will not be available until the architects have been selected, it is possible to have a close idea of what the result will be. As it had done with all previous phases of construction, the State Urban Development Corporation commissioned Cooper Eckstut Associates to prepare a set of design guidelines which all architects and developers who build at Battery Park City would be required to follow.

The new guidelines represent a significant step for a public agency, in that they reject the look of almost all previous publicly assisted housing. ''Variety is purposely sought to avoid any appearance of a 'project' look or superblocks, and instead provide the complexity and interest normally associated with older and more established neighborhoods,'' the Cooper Eckstut guidelines state.

The guidelines were based on a study by the urban designers of existing New York City neighborhoods. They concluded that the older and relatively unplanned neighborhoods were the city's most successful, and cited the importance of a mix of different types of housing and of the presence of a significant visual or landscape element, such as a park or river view.

The new residential development will have both amenities. It will be bounded on the west by the Hudson River and by the waterfront promenade that will border all of Battery Park City, and it will have in its center on Rector Place a small park modeled loosely on an urban square such as Gramercy Park. 'Street Walls' Continued

The buildings will follow old-style, conventional New York construction patterns in that they will be required to be built out to the street line. The planners have rejected the set-back plazas that have been popular in recent years in favor of creating a ''street wall'' such as those on Fifth Avenue, Central Park West or Riverside Drive.

The guidelines encourage fairly flat facades, but suggest strong stone bases and tops made elaborate by setbacks or even by architectural ornament.

Correction: August 25, 1981, Tuesday, Late City Final Edition A list of developers for Battery Park City in Metropolitan Report last Wednesday incorrectly described the Center for Housing Partnerships. It is a nonprofit corporation that retains in- dependent architects and contractors for projects it co-sponsors with com- munity groups and institutions.